Pet
by Fierceawakening
Summary: <html><head></head>Giftfic for femme4jack who wanted Mikaela as Megatron's pet. Mikaela, disillusioned after Sam dumps her, decides to defect and sees herself as a Decepticon spy. Megatron... just sees her as entertaining. Rather cracky.</html>


Megatron called out once, a short, sharp bark in a simplified version of Cybertronian.

It was a mockery of the language, and he cringed inwardly each time he used it. Still, humans had woefully inferior audio receptors. It was, sadly, necessary to speak in exaggerated, stilted sounds to be sure such creatures could distinguish one word from another.

The human he called didn't know the meaning of the syllable, either. It was probably best that she not know what word in her language would best correspond with it. She would find it an insult, and probably also an insult to her kind. And when she felt affronted, she could become almost as intractable as Starscream.

He chuckled. For a small, fleshy creature he could easily crush beneath one foot, she was certainly bent on proving herself useful. Sometimes it almost seemed that she aspired to become indispensable to the Decepticons.

It was an amusing thought. And, in its way, an impressive one. The human survived here only because at the moment, she was both amusing and occasionally beneficial to keep around. If she had any hope of surviving here once the novelty of providing for her wore off, she would have to make herself valuable somehow.

He doubted she would manage that, especially after the Decepticons destroyed her planet. Still, he had been wrong before. Better not to discourage her ambitions, just in case she might someday prove worthy of more than he thought possible. So she knew only that he used that word to call her, no doubt assuming it was a translation of her name.

And like any loyal creature, she came running when she heard it, leaping into the little enclosure he'd had built for her, surprisingly agile - and fearless - for such a small and fragile being.

She grinned, seeing him, and brushed away a lock of hair that hung over her optics. _Eyes, _he reminded himself. _The fleshlings call them "eyes."_

He could see that she was perspiring. Perhaps from eagerness, perhaps from running to answer his summons.

He trilled another word in simplified Cybertronian.

Her grin widened. "Really? I haven't had anything all day but those disgusting nutrient cubes Mixmaster makes." She pulled a face.

Then she winced. "I mean - I'm sorry, I know you don't even have to keep food for me at all. But if you do have some chocolate or something, that would be great, because that stuff Mix makes tastes like, um. Probably like ten year old diesel fuel would taste to you guys."

He opened his hand, revealing a small bar of human candy he'd attempted - and failed - not to crush. She rushed to the railing, grabbing eagerly for it.

He pulled his hand away and glared at her sternly. Then he answered her in the humans' language. "Soundwave tells me that you have information for me."

She bounced with excitement, her grin growing wider. "Yeah. I was watching Sam, that worthless jerk."

Her fleshy face twisted into a scowl. "I still can't believe he dumped me. I mean, come on, some guy drags you into some intergalactic war between giant robots like it's got something to do with you, and you roll with it and everything, and he dumps you? What is that?"

Megatron chuckled, seeing her rage. As far as he knew, the two humans hadn't been bonded, but her bitterness toward the other human for "dumping" her knew no bounds.

That had been an unexpected boon. She'd quickly abandoned any loyalties she might have had to her former mate's Autobot friends, and seemed to take a malicious kind of pleasure in spying on them and doing small things to foil their plans.

It surprised him that she would do such things. Her irritation at her former mate was, perhaps, understandable. But her alliance (as she saw it, anyway) with the Decepticons was not. It meant betraying not only one human boy, but her entire species.

It would be simple enough for Megatron to keep her, should she prove worthy to be kept. Mixmaster was already proficient at synthesizing the sort of fuel she needed, however unpleasant she found its flavor. Creating a small room and filling it with gaseous elements that approximated Earth's air well enough to ensure proper oxygen intake would be no trouble either. But was she truly ready, truly willing, to be the last of her kind?

Megatron doubted it. She was immature even for a human, barely out of a larval stage. Such humans, he had discovered, were notorious even among their own kind for disregarding the likely consequences of their own actions.

But whatever was going through her primitive processing unit, at the moment she was useful, and he was thankful for that.

The only problem was that he was never sure quite _how _useful. Sometimes she collected information that even Soundwave couldn't gather, or understood her human enemy in ways the Decepticons could not. Sometimes the information she gathered was useless tidbits that Soundwave had been aware of for weeks, the pranks she played uncomfortably sharpening the Autobots' watch on her.

He frowned. She'd been silent for too long. "The information," he prompted, hoping it would prove worth his time.

She grinned. "I was spying on Sam, and I saw him talking to one of the Autobots."

The Decepticon growled. "That would be a frequent occurrence, seeing as one of them lives in his garage."

The small creature shook her head violently. "Not what I meant. That's what's interesting. It wasn't Bumblebee I saw him talking to."

Megatron bent down closer to the platform.

"He was talking to Optimus Prime," she said, leaning over and whispering conspiratorially, her small voice so quiet his audios could barely pick it up.

Megatron's optics widened. "Optimus was there?"

Technically, now that the Autobots had saved the humans yet again, Optimus and his team were not required to keep their existence secret. Still, the Prime rarely ventured out unless it was into battle. And if he did leave his current headquarters - particularly to visit his most steadfast human ally - Soundwave should have known it.

It made no sense. But could this primitive creature really discover something that even his best had not?

The human smirked, clearly pleased with herself. "Yeah, and he told Sam it was important. Something about stuff happening on Cybertron."

"Cybertron?"

"Yeah. I don't get it either. Aren't there only Decepticons left there?"

"So I thought. I suppose it is possible that there are still pockets of Autobot resistance," Megatron answered. "But if there are, they have spent their time these last few years hiding from us, rather than engaging us. We have heard of no major or threatening activity."

He waved the chocolate in front of the human. "Did Optimus say anything more?"

She stared at the treat, mesmerized, and bent over the railing to grab at it. Megatron quickly drew his hand away, but the clever little creature had managed to swipe one of the broken pieces. She flashed Megatron a brazen little grin, and then eagerly stuffed the piece of candy into her mouth.

Megatron responded in Cybertronian, a single, harsh syllable. She gave him a pleading look that he suspected was supposed to win pity he didn't have.

Then, seeing him unmoved, she gave up.

"Uh, he - he was worried about whatever it was that was going on," she said, still chewing. Megatron winced at the sound. "He said he wasn't sure if you knew about it."

She laughed, showing her teeth. "It was funny. He seemed kind of worried about that. Almost like he thought you taking care of it would be better than whatever it was just going on.

"But why would he think that? I mean, he thinks you're wrong about everything! He chased you all the way across the galaxy when he heard you might wake up. If there's somebody out there who's scarier than _you_ -" She shivered, wrapping her bare, fleshy arms around herself.

Megatron said nothing for a long moment. The creature was right: this _was _unusual, and it didn't bode well. Anything his Decepticons did on Cybertron that was important enough to worry his worst enemy was something he should have known about already.

"Did he give a name?"

The human pondered this, putting a finger to her chin. "I couldn't hear everything they were saying. Sam was saying he saw me earlier, and that it kind of freaked him out, so I was staying out of the way. But I think they might've - yeah, they said something."

Megatron's optics narrowed as he closed the hand that held the rest of the treat. The human pouted and made a highly irritating sound of dismay.

"The name," he said, his spark whirling in anger. He already had his suspicions. If they were proven true, then the Decepticons on Earth could be in grave danger. To say nothing of their Autobot enemies.

She looked from the hand to Megatron's face, still shivering. "Well - um - I mean - a lot of you guys have names that are also words, and it's not always easy to tell if someone's saying a name or - or - a thing -"

Megatron growled. "The name, human."

The human shifted her weight from one leg to the other, and then back again. "This must really be important, huh?"

Megatron simply stared.

"I - uh. Like I said, I'm not sure, but - but I think Optimus said something like - Shockwave."

Megatron roared, the forgotten treat splintering to pieces in his fist. The human scrabbled backward, looking down.

_Shockwave._ It made sense, if anything did. Starscream had ruled Cybertron after Megatron left it; after Starscream left it as well, who better to take control than one who could easily rule from the shadows, manipulating every outcome, ensuring that those who stood in his way simply disappeared without a trace?

He looked up, suddenly remembering the flesh creature cowering in a corner of her enclosure. He called to her in Cybertronian, his vocalization harsh. She blinked, looking at him. Then she walked toward him, her stride rapidly becoming even and confident.

By the time she reached the wall of her enclosure, she was smiling. "Guess I just told you something you really needed to know, huh?"

He lowered his hand again, opening it to reveal the crushed pieces of the broken candy held in his palm. He could feel the gears controlling his mouthplates shift into a smile of their own, quite independently of his control.

He answered in Cybertronian first: the simplified sound for "yes," then the syllable he'd never explained to her.

Then he answered in the human's language, watching her grab at the broken pieces of candy and shovel them into her fleshy little mouth. "Yes, flesh creature. It appears that you did."


End file.
